Comparisons of animal and human weapons have a long scholarly tradition.

Evidence

The more I sought common threads—themes uniting the stories of diverse animal species—the more apparent it became that these threads applied to our own weapons, too. In the end, my book about animal weapons evolved into a book about extreme weapons everywhere. I pored deeper into the literature surrounding our past, searching for the environments and circumstances in which our most elaborate weapons evolved. To my amazement, these circumstances truly were the same, and I realized I couldn’t tell one story without telling the other. Back and forth I went, as the biology of animal weapons and our weapons fused, inextricably woven into a single tale. This is a book about extreme weapons. Let’s just leave it at that. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 7 (#responds-to, via linked claim)

Artillery and fortifications are manufactured structures, yet they evolve just like the weapons of animals do. Advances in the effectiveness of artillery select for new and better designs of fortresses, and vice versa, in a back-and-forth cycle that can spiral into an arms race. Because fortresses are fixed in place, rivals in these races have defined roles as attackers and defenders, much like animal predators and prey. The final examples pit attacker against attacker, in matched contests more reminiscent of battles between beetles or elk. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 525 (#responds-to, via linked claim)

In the animal world, extreme weapons are usually confined to specific, rare circumstances such as sit-and-wait hunting tactics, or within-colony division of labor. But another surprisingly potent phenomenon can lead to the evolution of exaggerated weapon sizes: competition. Nature’s biggest weapons decide the outcomes of battles over the chance to reproduce, the most precious commodity of all. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 136 (#responds-to, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The evolutionary drivers of animal weapons also explain human weapon elaboration. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 7; Human fortifications and artillery evolve via the same arms-race logic as animal weapons — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 525; Humanity’s oldest art depicts animals with extreme weapons — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 950 (+3 more)

Related

• Identical circumstances trigger and collapse arms races in animals and humans. (similarity 0.92)
• The evolutionary drivers of animal weapons also explain human weapon elaboration. (similarity 0.91)
• Human and animal arms races follow parallel evolutionary dynamics (similarity 0.90)
• Human fortifications and artillery evolve via the same arms-race logic as animal weapons (similarity 0.88)
• Weapon evolution is judged by competition among designs, not human survival (similarity 0.88)
• Humanity’s oldest art depicts animals with extreme weapons (similarity 0.87)
• Weapons innovations trigger arms races in ships just as in animals (similarity 0.87)
• Markets and battlefields select among rifle designs like natural selection acts on weapons (similarity 0.87)
• Human WMDs exceed any animal weapon in destructive capacity (similarity 0.87)
• Animal weapons evolved to extremes far beyond practical size (similarity 0.86)
• Extreme weapons evolved independently across roughly three thousand species (similarity 0.85)
• Animal weapons can evolve rapidly within just seven generations (similarity 0.85)
• Fortification-artillery escalation mirrors predator-prey arms races, not rival contests (similarity 0.85)
• Three conditions must align to trigger an animal weapons arms race. (similarity 0.85)
• Specific ecological circumstances must align before weapon arms races begin (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• The evolutionary drivers of animal weapons also explain human weapon elaboration. #responds-to (0.50) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 7
• Human fortifications and artillery evolve via the same arms-race logic as animal weapons #responds-to (0.50) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 525
• Competition for reproduction drives evolution of nature’s biggest weapons #responds-to (0.50) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 136
• Identical circumstances trigger and collapse arms races in animals and humans. #responds-to (0.40) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 17
• Weapons innovations trigger arms races in ships just as in animals #responds-to (0.40) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 962
• Humanity’s oldest art depicts animals with extreme weapons #expands (0.35) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 950